The Gaming Den

Apparently they still had 80K DDI subscribers a year ago ... for that kind of dough you should be able to kick out a couple of books a year. Also you'd think they could design the Next playtest in a way which appears to not be an exercise in spitting in their face ... at least put a fucking Warlord...

I really don't like the Magic Item Compendium. Basically every other splat was at least okay, but MIC felt incredibly video game-y and also brought a truly stunning amount of power creep. Ignoring the belt of battle (which should have lived up to it's name and allowed attack/full attack actions ins...

You forgot the trap progression from (a) ERMAHGERD GIGAX! It's not like you could really detect Gygax traps, if you could detect them you often couldn't disarm them, if you could disarm them the disarming procedure was often a trap in itself which you couldn't detect. Sending something in to trigge...

Eberron is a bit too obviously designed to tick boxes to win a contest. On the other hand I really like one of those boxes is being suited to epic campaigns (defacto no gods, adventurers are speciul and canon potential opponents are mid level except for optional ones locked away). Keith Baker's insi...

Inquisitor I actually like, the abilities gel relatively well, you don't get forced into a very small subset of character builds to be effective like the Magus ... there is still the problem that melee can't have anything nice, but that's pretty universal. The biggest problem is that it's fiddly wit...

sake wrote: Yeah, the rogue's just flat out dead. They need to buff the shit out sneak attack or something.

Sniper goggles already did that.

wotmaniac wrote:And she also expected to maintain ownership rights (despite having it explained to her that contract-work-for-hire doesn't work like that).

So? That just means that her quoted prices weren't for work for hire, they were for a license to use the art in a given way (for instance for a single book).

It's taking Paizo multiple man years and overruns and they are not as much of a clusterfuck as WotC, they also don't have a failed VTT in their past to make them hesitant about spending all that money for peanut income. When VTT can become the table top for a large part of the audience the market wi...

There's nothing "just" about the VTT and delivering content for it ... it's a lot of work and investment, especially for a company as inefficient as WotC. They'll make an android/iOS version of the character editor no doubt because they can sell subscriptions with that to a significant par...

I wasn't arguing that those things needed to go away, just that if you were going to build a new electronic interface you should build one that doesn't require additional hardware costs. If almost everyone sticks to traditional battle maps then there is no commercial incentive to develop electronic...

Horrizontal computer screen? Full touch table? Fuck that. Don't ask people to buy new devices, make things for the devices they already have. The device we already have is a table on which you can put down paper and plastic battle maps ... a very very good interface for which any alternative would ...

So my actual favourite martial arts anime is still Ranma 1/2 after all these years, because fights tend to not be very long and it's "martial arts figure skating" and stuff. In other words, actually calling it a martial arts anime is stretching it. However, I'm willing to be proven wrong,...

A digital play format in your living room, while awesome, is quite different than the social-media-only format that is suggested by the OP. Sure, but there is an overlap ... the software is mostly the same, even in the living room you would want a separate DM screen on a tablet and the player scree...

Once we get to the point where touch tables become cheap enough that we start seeing becoming a popular platform for board games then I think it's time for RPGs to go digital, though we're not quite there yet. The ability to just buy a hack and slash dungeon exploration module and be able to run it ...

They can't really afford to keep Next simple ... the 4e optimization culture is what made the character builder a subscription seller and those subscriptions were huge money.

Occasionally when I try to connect the site can't be found ... then a minute later it works again. Bluehost having some problem with the DNS or is it on my side?

Seriously, the monk and 4e as counterpoints? They are fucked because they were made by idiots ... not because of design constraints. Someone having a low double digit percentage of damage difference between weapon types doesn't make him useless without his signature weapon, neither does losing a few...

I for one see no problem with allowing weapon specialization outside it's interaction with the magic item system. All weapons can perform their primary function most of the time (do damage). Weapon types are not at all like spell schools, being limited to a single spell school is far more of a game ...

But I wonder... if D&DN used such a system, would folks throw a fit about it? I wouldn't like it, I think Vancian mechanics should mostly be in world (ToB) and not meta (4e) ... I'm willing to compromise on that for something like action points, but not for something which gets used nearly ever...

With the exception of the subclasses-that-cater-to-fighter/mages stuff (3e already shows us that creating effectively mandatory patch PRCs to mitigate trap options is bad design), that actually sounds like they're doing something right! You actually buy the statement that the spell scaling makes no...

Wolverine's greatest strength, like Batman is his popularity ... allowing him to get away with more plot contrivances than other characters.

The telepaths in Marvel are all pretty hax BTW.

So FFG has released their first Star Wars RPG. They're basing the entire line off of the same format/structure that they used in their Warhammer 40k line: each core book increases the power level of starting characters and puts them in different settings. The first core book focuses on Han Solo and...

who or what says leveling is rare? have you ever played D&D? everybody has a fucking level! for those that don't they are classless levels that are already at their max level: commoner, merchant, noble. everyone else has a level. Leveling, ie. the act of acquiring a level, is rare. Even if you ...

You're positing a fairly narrow needle to thread, because you have design goals that conflict in rather fundamental ways. If magic items are rare, it strains believability that you can get specifically the ones you want. Leveling is rare (from a world perspective). Just give characters an item expe...

I haven't played any of the MEs, but someone floated a theory that was in effect that the wish fulfillment of the first two games was accidental; and the third game was 'steering' it back on track for better or worse. Thoughts? So they have a lead writer on the first two games who somehow is overru...